Operations of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. in the United States are now being taken over by a subsidiary named Futurewei Technologies Inc., which was better known as the research and patent filing unit of the Chinese tech giant.
Futurewei is a U.S. firm registered in the United States. Its registration papers have it doing business in the U.S. also as Huawei. Futurewei was founded in 2001 and has its headquarters in Plano, Texas.
Before it took on its expanded role, Futurewei was Huawei's U.S.-based research and development unit. Its offices in Silicon Valley and in greater Seattle, Chicago, and Dallas employ hundreds of people.
Futurewei and Huawei are also involved in research partnerships and grant programs with U.S. universities and other academic institutions, according to Reuters.
Futurewei has filed more than 2,100 patents for Huawei in the U.S. covering telecommunications, 5G cellular networks, and video and camera technologies said the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The changing role of Futurewei has seen it ban Huawei employees from its offices. It's also ordered Futurewei employees not to use the Huawei name or logo in communications. Huawei, however, continues to own Futurewei.
Analysts said Futurewei's past operations are almost similar to Huawei's. Futurewei had no separate brand and its employees often identified themselves as Huawei employees. That's now changing in light of Huawei's blacklisting.
Futurewei has taken the lead role in promoting Huawei's interests in the U.S. Because it's a U.S. firm, Futurewei can't be covered by the same federal government's ban that prevents its parent firm from conducting business in the country. This also prevents the U.S. Department of Commerce from placing Futurewei on the foreign entities blacklist as it did to Huawei.
